In this thread, please list who you consider top ten RPG composers. It's up to you what criteria you use, e.g. whether prolificness, influence, or personal considerations are most important to you. I'll see if I can tally up the results between three sites (SEMO, STC, VGMdb) and then post up an interesting feature about it.

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Here are my own. Those who achieved top places are those who I felt were the most influential, as well as competent. Only ten places, so I had to leave out some who are worthy of great consideration, like Hiroki Kikuta, Yoko Shimomura, Mieko Ishikawa, Kohei Tanaka, and Miki Higashino.

I guess I'm most impressed by originality, personality, confidence, daring, and just general devotion to one's art. I don't think I've ever successfully produced a sorted top ten list that's accurate to any degree, but here goes:

Guess I'm the only one who thinks Kenji Ito should be within the Top 10. Not that he's always clicked with my personal preference, but his career was, if not paramount, pretty important to the Eastern RPG history.

Guess I'm the only one who thinks Kenji Ito should be within the Top 10. Not that he's always clicked with my personal preference, but his career was, if not paramount, pretty important to the Eastern RPG history.

Ito's on my list over at SEMO. :3 He does tend to be a little inconsistent (or maybe too consistent?) , but I've generally enjoyed his work and consider him a skilled and influential VGM composer.

Then again... I've also got Naoshi Mizuta on my list. So make of that what you will. XD

I know it's a funny choice for No.1, but the concept of RPG music wasn't really defined until he came along.

Interesting choice, I agree. It has often been said that Koichi Sugiyama established the format of RPG scores, e.g. in this nice RPGFan article. But to what extent were these elements already established the composers you and Datschge listed? I'm not generally familiar with pre-1986 RPG scores.

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1986: Koji Kondo (by the way of Zelda, corner case, but I think his influence on JRPGs can't be denied)

Yeah, Zelda music definitely had a major influence on RPG composers, even if it wasn't necessarily an RPG itself. I guess same applies for Shin Onigashima...

Quote:

Guess I'm the only one who thinks Kenji Ito should be within the Top 10. Not that he's always clicked with my personal preference, but his career was, if not paramount, pretty important to the Eastern RPG history.

It wasn't a deliberate rejection on my part, but rather he just didn't come to my mind at all. I don't think his music was as influential or impressive as some others, but he definitely warrants consideration at least. I agree that Kenji Ito's influence is generally underestimated in the Western game music community though.

Chris, I noticed that some of us wrote our list based on personal preference, where others focused on composers who most influenced the genre. I'm not sure what your goal for this data is, but I wonder if this divide will skew the results you're looking for?

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What is "the box" that people are supposed to think outside of anyway? Hmm. Maybe it's similar to the Borg from Star Trek who dwelled as a collective hive-mind within a...box/cube. Those that deviated from this hive-mind would, in effect, be thinking outside of the box. it has both a figurative and a literal meaning.

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Originally Posted by jdkluv

Also, Ryo Kunihiko was in soundTeMP?!

Oops. Late reply.

Anyway, he may be under a different alias or something, but according to soundTeMP's website, Aion ~The Tower Of Eternity~ Original Sound Track soundtrack is listed as having some affiliation to the group. Perhaps KeyLogic may have made a wrongful assumption?

__________________
The statement below is false.
The statement above is true.

One man was smart, he felt smart. Two men were smart, they smelt farrr...darn it! I'll never get it right.

What is "the box" that people are supposed to think outside of anyway? Hmm. Maybe it's similar to the Borg from Star Trek who dwelled as a collective hive-mind within a...box/cube. Those that deviated from this hive-mind would, in effect, be thinking outside of the box. it has both a figurative and a literal meaning.

Anyway, he may be under a different alias or something, but according to soundTeMP's website, Aion ~The Tower Of Eternity~ Original Sound Track soundtrack is listed as having some affiliation to the group. Perhaps KeyLogic may have made a wrongful assumption?

Perhaps KeyLogic may have made a RIGHTFUL assumption. Who knows? Not jdkluv, that's for sure!

A little late to the game, but here's a list. I had some difficulty to actually think of 10 names at first, but then ended having to cut people out. I don't like picking favourites because it all depends so much on the day.

Any thoughts on the results? Expected or surprising? Positive surprises? Disappointments?

I'm personally pretty pleased and think the results fit quite well with what I expected, plus my own listings. I would have wanted at least one Western composer and would have switched Hamauzu with Sugiyama. But overall, pretty cool.

Anyway, sorry for the delay! Hope you enjoy it. Hopefully do something like this again soon.

Well, some time ago I wanted to take a part in this topic and started going through my soundtrack collection, listing works and composers. And to my great surprise, I couldn't come up with one composer who would be worthy of a place in a top-ten. I am still not quite sure how it could happen, considering that RPG is perhaps my favorite genre and that music became about the most important aspect of games for me, but there it is. One problem that I did identify is that most RPG composers that I know seem to only have one great RPG title with the rest somehow disqualified (not great, not RPG, not published...). (Another problem is that I only have a very slight in console game musics - for some reason most of the titles, including most of the fan favorites, don't do a thing to me.)